The extra $5 promised to doctors for bulk-billing children under 16 and concession card holders is not enough to make him consider returning to full bulk-billing.

"Five dollars sweetens bulk-billing, but it's not a proper rise," he said. "It's a little bit unfair, in that the rebate should be properly funded by the Government for all patients."

Other doctors yesterday agreed with Dr Morton that the MedicarePlus package did little to lift their incomes while costs continued to soar.

They said they already routinely bulk-billed pensioners and concession card holders but had been forced to stop doing so for most other patients because the Medicare rebate had not kept up with costs.

"We'd like to bulk-bill but we've not been able to," said Sheila Knowlden, a GP attached to the Department of General Practice at Fairfield Hospital.

"We've left bulk-billing where we thought it was most important, and had to let it go at the edges."

Her practice bulk-bills pensioners, health-care card holders and family patients it asks to return for check-up visits.

"This could perhaps be seen as a reward for current behaviour," she said.

"We'd respond to real incentives to go back to bulk-billing, but these aren't going to do it."

A Leichhardt-based family practitioner, Dianne Chambers, said the new system of rebates would create an administrative headache.

"Who's going to count how many times a family sees a GP, and who's going to administer and pay for the secretarial costs in order to do that?" she said. "That $5 very quickly gets consumed in bureaucratic nonsense."

While Dr Chambers's practice also bulk-billed seniors and concession card holders, she said she was also unlikely to return to bulk-billing more generally.

"Why would I take $30 when I currently charge $45?" she said.

"I think it's unlikely to make us change."

A Glebe Point Road GP, Dr Charlotte Hespe, said

she had no plans to return to bulk-billing patients other than pensioners, students and health-care card holders.

"There's just no encouragement for us to stop doing what we're doing," she said.